Restaurant in Dallas, United States
Dallas yakitori that earned its awards fast.
Mābo is Dallas's most focused yakitori opening in years, earning Esquire's Best New Restaurants recognition (#33, 2024) and a Resy Hit List spot in 2025. Chef Bounahcree Kim's precision-driven skewer format makes this a strong call for food enthusiasts. Book 1–2 weeks out on weeknights; the easy booking window won't stay open forever.
Mābo lands on Berkshire Lane in Dallas as one of the more purposeful yakitori openings in Texas in recent memory. Named to Esquire's Leading New Restaurants list at #33 in 2024 and picked up by Resy's Leading of the Hit List in 2025, this is a restaurant that has earned its early reputation quickly. If you are deciding whether to book: yes, book it. The combination of a focused Japanese yakitori format, a chef with genuine conviction, and early critical validation makes this one of the stronger calls you can make on a Dallas dinner.
Yakitori as a format rewards patience and attention — it is about smoke, char, and precision over a binchotan charcoal grill, applied to skewered proteins and vegetables in a sequence that rewards those who order broadly rather than cautiously. Chef Bounahcree Kim is steering that format here, and the Esquire and Resy recognition suggests the kitchen is executing at a level that outpaces most first-year restaurants. For a food enthusiast seeking depth, yakitori at a serious level is worth understanding: it is a high-skill cooking discipline where timing and heat management are everything, and where the difference between a competent and a confident kitchen is immediately legible on the plate.
The address , 6109 Berkshire Lane B in the Preston Hollow area , puts Mābo in a quieter, residential-adjacent part of Dallas rather than in the dense dining corridors of Uptown or Deep Ellum. That is relevant to your planning: this is a destination visit, not a walk-by. Build your evening around it. For where to stay before or after, see our full Dallas hotels guide.
Verified drink program specifics are not available in our current data, so we will not speculate on the list. What is worth knowing as a frame: yakitori pairs well with a narrow but considered drinks program. The format's salt, umami, and smoke call for either lean, high-acid whites (think Chablis, Muscadet, or dry Riesling) or low-tannin reds, and the better yakitori restaurants in Japan and the US have increasingly treated the drinks side with the same seriousness as the food. Whether Mābo has fully built that program out is something you should ask when you book , but the awards trajectory suggests this is a team that thinks in complete sentences about the dining experience. Check the current list when you reserve.
Mābo sits in an interesting position in Dallas's broader dining map. For Japanese specifically, Tei-An is the longer-established reference point at the $$$$ tier, focused on soba and izakaya in a more formal room. Tatsu Dallas covers the premium Japanese end at $$$$ as well. Mābo's yakitori specialisation carves out a different lane from both , more casual in format, more focused in execution. If you are choosing between them for a single dinner, the decision comes down to whether you want a broader Japanese menu (Tei-An or Tatsu) or a tighter, more intimate skewer-driven experience (Mābo).
Against the wider Dallas field, venues like Mamani, Babel, and Avra Dallas occupy Mediterranean and international territory that doesn't directly compete, but they signal the same general appetite for serious, chef-driven cooking in Dallas that Mābo is feeding into. For a broader view of the city's dining options, our full Dallas restaurants guide is the right starting point.
With a 4.6 Google rating on an early review count and two significant awards in its first year, Mābo is in the window where booking difficulty is still manageable , but that window closes as word spreads. Book 1–2 weeks out for weeknights; aim for 2–3 weeks for weekends. The Resy Hit List placement in 2025 will drive traffic, so if you are reading this in mid-2025 or later, add a week to those estimates. Booking is currently rated Easy, which means same-week availability is realistic for now , but don't let that create false confidence on a Friday or Saturday.
If Mābo represents the kind of precise, format-focused cooking that interests you and you want to benchmark it nationally, the analogous level of conviction , if not the same cuisine , appears in restaurants like Lazy Bear in San Francisco or Atomix in New York City. Mābo is earlier in its arc, but the awards trajectory puts it in serious company for a first-year restaurant.
| Venue | Price | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mābo | Easy | — | |
| Fearing's | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Lucia | $$$ | Unknown | — |
| Tei-An | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Tatsu Dallas | $$$$ | Unknown | — |
| Cattleack Barbeque | $$ | Unknown | — |
Comparing your options in Dallas for this tier.
Bar seating details are not confirmed in our data, but yakitori restaurants at this level typically offer counter or bar seats that put you close to the grill — often the better option for solo diners or pairs who want to watch the cook. If counter access matters to you, call ahead to confirm availability before booking a table.
Specific menu items are not confirmed in our data and change with the format, so we won't guess at dish names. What the yakitori format reliably rewards is ordering across the full skewer progression rather than cherry-picking — that's where binchotan grilling shows its range. Trust the kitchen's sequence if there is a set menu option.
Yes, with a caveat on group size. Mābo's Esquire Best New Restaurants ranking and Resy Hit List recognition signal a restaurant taking itself seriously, which suits a celebration. The yakitori format works best for two to four people — it's an attentive, course-driven meal, not a loud group dinner. For larger parties, confirm whether a private or semi-private option exists.
Book at least two to three weeks out. Mābo holds a 4.6 Google rating and landed two major awards in its first year — Esquire 2024 and Resy 2025 — which means it is in the window where demand is rising but slots haven't fully tightened. That window won't stay open indefinitely; book sooner if you're targeting a weekend.
For Japanese in Dallas, Tei-An is the longer-established reference point and leans soba and kaiseki rather than yakitori, so the two don't directly overlap. Tatsu Dallas covers a different register of Japanese dining. If you want Texas smoke and char in a non-Japanese context, Cattleack Barbeque is the serious local benchmark. Fearing's and Lucia address upscale Texas and Italian respectively — different categories, but competitive for the same special-occasion spend.
Yakitori is a format built around patience — small skewers arrive in sequence, and the meal takes time. Don't arrive expecting a quick dinner or a large sharing spread. Mābo is on Berkshire Lane in Dallas's Preston Hollow area, chef-led by Bounahcree Kim, and earned Esquire's Best New Restaurants ranking in its first year, which sets the expectation level correctly: this is a destination meal, not a casual drop-in.
No dress code is documented for Mābo, and the venue data doesn't specify one. For a restaurant at this recognition level — Esquire Best New Restaurants, Resy Hit List — neat casual to smart casual is a reasonable default. You won't be turned away in jeans, but you'd feel underdressed in a T-shirt.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
